I haven’t been able to try anything as my shin strike from 12 days ago morphed into a horrible injury, I think I chipped or crushed the surface layer of the tibia.
Apparently I rolled my ankle, while trying to hobble around, bruised down to the sole of my foot and swollen
Almost 2 weeks of healing but I doubt I’ll be recovered enough to try riding for a few more days at least.
It sucks, I feel like I’ll be starting all over again.
I did pick up a cheap pair of shin guards to wear while practicing free mounting.
Sorry you got hurt. The shins are a special part of the body. When I got my first small pedal bites, they swelled up within 2 or 3 seconds and also took a long time to heal.
So many people report hurting their shins when trying to freemount that I am kind of mystified it has never happened to me, even though I now do a number of different mounts. Static mounts, which I still never do, must be dangerous!
A lot of people advise against soccer shin guards and recommend all sorts of designer body armor instead, though I suppose that’s probably for some sort of trials madness rather than just freemounting. Learning to ride seat-out also looks like a good way to get some nasty pedal bites, but it seems like an important skill, too.
I’ve been riding for about a year now. It took me about a month to ride without holding onto anything, and a bit more than a month after that to start landing free mounts. I land nearly every free mount now, but it took a lot of practice to get to that point. After I could land a couple free mounts, maybe one out of 10 or 15, I took about two or three hours a day for about four or five days and practiced mounting. I would try to mount then ride forward a couple rotations then dismount ad do it again. It seems boring and stupid but it works!
So you probably won’t need to spend the kind of time I did to master it, but just dedicate some time and practice.